Bourbons and Black Stallions
Storytelling stuff worth sharing
I am writing to you from Danville, Kentucky. Horses are a big deal here. There were giant pictures of Triple Crown winners on the airport floor. We drove out of the airport on Man o’ War Boulevard.
I’m not in Kentucky because of horses, even though I’m a huuuuuge fan of Walter Farley and his Black Stallion books (I read them all multiple times, and even wrote my own fourth-grade Black Stallion fan fiction). And definitely not because I had childhood dreams of becoming a jockey. That dream perished when puberty stretched me to six foot three.
No, I’m in Kentucky because of a play.
See, Wednesday night was the preview performance of the new tour version of LAST OUT: ELEGY OF A GREEN BERET.
I have been so deeply honored to direct this production. My cast comes from all over: Nashville, Fayetteville, L.A., Chicago, Tampa. We rehearsed a bit on zoom, when hurricanes weren’t interrupting. We gathered for an intense Sat/Sun in-person rehearsal blitz a couple weeks ago, then came together again last Saturday and have been going hard every hour since.
It’s been one of the most compressed, terrifying, and exhilarating rehearsal processes I’ve ever been a part of. The actors have committed themselves to the storytelling and to each other with unfettered generosity and vulnerability.
Oh, and all of them are military veterans or military family members. They are telling their stories. And it’s breathtakingly powerful.
They played to a full house at STAGEWORKS in Tampa Wednesday night. Laughter, tears, a talkback jam-packed with more stories and tears and embraces. Basically, healing themselves and others in real time.
They struck the set, packed up the costumes and props, collapsed in their hotel rooms, woke up at 3:30am Thursday to get on planes and fly to Kentucky. We rolled into the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College and went right back into tech rehearsal, because we have a performance tonight. The premiere of the 2024-25 tour season.
Driving from the airport to the theatre, it was all rolling pastures, mid-50s and overcast (I got to wear my favorite hoodie!), leaves changing colors, and bourbon on every shelf in every shop and gas station.
I’m going to assume that I speak not just for myself but for this entire amazing team: we slept hard last night. Like babies. Like rocks. Like baby rocks.
And today we’ll set sound levels and microphone levels and do a dress rehearsal and meet with some Families of the Fallen and once again tap into the magic and healing that only storytelling can conjure.
Then Saturday we’ll all fly to our various homes. And when the next tap on the shoulder comes, we’ll gather and do it again. And again. Telling stories. Listening to stories. Offering healing. Receiving healing.
Keep an eye out. We’ll be announcing more tour dates soon.
Storytelling Tip o’ the Week
Gonna keep this one short’n’sweet.
Keep a “swipe file.” Tuck a little notebook and pen in your backpack or purse. Use a notes app on your phone. When you see something, hear something, experience something cool or nifty, jot it down. Capture it. Figure out how to use it later. Ideas are all around you, all the time.
A perfect example from the LAST OUT talkback Wednesday night. There’s a lovely line in the show, a shared bit o’ poetry between the Green Beret and his impossibly strong wife. When he deploys, they take hands and say together… “I’ll see you when I see you. And until then, know that I love you.”
I didn’t know this till Wednesday night, but the playwright Scott Mann had added that line after a particular performance, when an actual military couple shared with him how they used those words as a mantra/invocation/protective spell. He tucked it into his swipe file, added it to the next draft. And that couple was at the show again Wednesday. The wife told our actress that she had “captured our experience perfectly.”
Imagine that! Seeing a play and hearing your actual words woven into the story.
Ideas are around you, all the time. Build a mechanism to capture them. Whatever works for you.
Calendar of Events
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9: Bookstore1 Local Author Book Fair
Meet and support 18 local authors in the breezeway of 117 S. Pineapple from 9am to 1pm, including three authors from Ibis Books!
Carrie Seidman — A PLACE AT THE TABLE: Memories of a Life Well-Fed
Dan Landon — FROM THE BACK OF THE HOUSE: Memoir of a Broadway Theatre Manager
Maria Schaedler-Luera — BE THE PROTAGONIST: How Ayurveda, Meditation, and Theatre Can Transform Your Life
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14: first class meeting for Playwright’s Playground
My playwriting class at ACE (Adult & Community Enrichment) on the campus of Suncoast Technical College runs 1-3pm on Thursdays for six weeks, through December 19, with Thanksgiving Day off.
Quotable
One last LAST OUT item: the show travels with mental health professionals. The subject matter hits hard, cuts deep. Emotions and memories scrabble to the surface, burst out. Interventions are inevitable and necessary.
I have to give the hugest shout out to Doc Diego. He’s taken care of so many people—actors, audience members—and does so with tenderness, compassion, and contagious strength.
In one of my talks with him, he told me something that came to him during one of his moments of reflection. Kinda like a mini-parable. I share it with you because it released tensions in me that I didn’t even know I was holding.
I finally turned and faced my fear. My fear said, “You know my job is to protect you, and to keep you safe.” I asked my fear, “So then why do you chase me?” And my fear answered, “I can’t do my job if I’m not close to you. I chase you… because you run.” —Doc Diego
The Podcast
A reminder to check out the most recent episode of the Page&Stage Podcast, featuring the irrepressible Jeffrey Couchman!
Jeffrey is a professor, author, playwright, and screenwriter. He and I dig deep into the process of adaptation: transforming (or translating, or transplanting!) stories from one format into another. Jeffrey talks about how he can turn a silent film like Battleship Potemkin into a dialogue-rich musical, or historical events into plays, or short stories into a stage play that he then turns into a radio show. Our lively discussion explores how adaptation is not just about transferring content but about reimagining form.
Thanks as always for reading, and have a great weekend!
Jason “Gigantic Jockey” Cannon